“Act II” protests: France Holds its Breath

France is holding its breath on the eve of another day of tightly controlled protests, billed as an “Act II” of the demonstrations.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez accused the ultra-left and the “radical far left” of using social media to encourage “acts of violence,” saying that “rioters” had also called for looting.

He announced that 70,000 police officers and gendarmes would be deployed. They will be backed by troops from Operation Sentinelle, elite police and gendarmerie units such as RAID, GIGN and BRI, as well as helicopters and armored vehicles.

After more than a month of crisis, Emmanuel Macron took a frontline role in addressing the high school protests on Friday, meeting their representatives for the first time before visiting law enforcement personnel.

Meanwhile, the president continues to emphasize a firm response on the streets following the violence and looting that marred last weekend’s protests against the high cost of living.

Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, for his part, insisted that the criminal justice response to the violence was “unprecedented,” announcing that 217 people had been jailed following violence and looting that affected between 2,000 and 3,000 businesses.

Shooting in a Paris suburb

The government also faced a new security crisis after a man fired bursts of gunfire at several people from his car in Trappes and La Verrière, in the Yvelines department, killing one person and injuring five others, including a 12-year-old girl.

The gunman, suspected of intending to target people from immigrant backgrounds, carried out an “attack with racist, probably Islamophobic overtones,” Trappes Mayor Ali Rabeh charged.

The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) quickly took over the case. It announced that it had opened an investigation into “premeditated murder linked to a terrorist undertaking, with the aggravating circumstance that the acts were committed because of the victims’ actual or presumed membership of a purported race, ethnic group, nation or particular religion.”